MorriganTait said:
I appreciate that you took the time to do that.
Thanks.
I think SCIENCE itself is rather specific, and Theology and Philosophy would not fall into the category of a science, but that said, I think you and I are quite likeminded in that we see no conflict between our ever-developing beliefs (theology) and ever-developing knowledge of the physical universe (science) - and though we haven't touched on philosophy, I have a feeling we'd be in a greement on many things.
My definition of "science" is a much more ancient one--one that goes back to before the Enlightenment. Isaac Newton and his peers would be much more comfortable with it than most people these days. Your Latin etymology of "science" hints at it: that it's the means of discovering "knowledge". It used to be that science, theology, and philosophy were seen as one discipline. The ancient Greeks demonstrate that very well. At that time they made no divisions
at all between the three branches.
Over time, the three branches of our knowledge-discovering process became better-defined. A split started to emerge between philosophy and theology even under the Greeks when you started to get some of the "heretical" philosophers. At that time, physical science still came under the heading of philosophy. It was the Enlightenment (about the 18th century) where the split between the two branches of philosophy showed up and got even worse in the 19th century when some people (on both sides) started claiming the two were absolutely irreconcileable.
What I've tried to do is to reintegrate them, to a point. I do think it was good to separate them out at least in terms of refining the individual components--that way each can be followed to their utmost conclusion. But when it comes to actual problem-solving, deciding what to do under a certain set of circumstances, they have to be fully reintegrated (in my view) in order to make the best decision.
I see them as three islands linked by bridges, if that makes sense. It's not the TOTALLY indistinct way the ancients saw it, or the completely separate way a lot of people see it now, but they are all united at the Source--I believe the same Creator ordained all three sets of laws and ensured that they are all consistent with each other.
Sorry if that's a ramble, but I hope that clarifies a bit more what I meant by this.
I personally feel - not that this is what YOU are doing, per se - that insisting on seeing matters of faith as scientific elements is a perversion of faith. My faith is something quite different from my serious scientific pursuits, and I would not want to see them as the same.
What I said above may address this, too.
When people ask how I "know" there is a God, I try to explain that it is like a knowledge written on my heart. I don't know there is a God the way I know there is a can od soda in my fridge. It's just different, entirely, but neither is less true to me.
I wonder, sometimes, if people who rail against science, or push for specific interpretations of scripture are really just covering up for a lack of faith.
Could be in some cases--in other cases it could just be what a person is comfortable thinking. My grandmother is very, very faithful, but does not believe in evolution. She won't preach at you, though, if you mention it, or any other really in-your-face behavior.
In fact, the time we discussed it, she raised the objection, "Why aren't there different stages of human evolution still walking around today?"
I looked at her and said, with a perfectly straight face, "But Grandma, there are Neanderthals EVERYWHERE!"
She just blew up laughing.
It was great because she believes what she believes, but doesn't take herself too seriously. The perfect combination, if you ask me.
I have a good friend who is a Biblical scholar, yet he can tell me, he has almost no personal experience with a feeling of the overwhelming presence of God. I feel like I get that once a week (and I don't mean, when I am sitting at Church - but it happens there sometimes too.)
I've had it in a REALLY weird place, and it may also help shed some light on why I look at things as I do (and maybe integrate the three branches of thought a little more closely than you'd like).
No kidding, some of my most profound experiences of the awesomeness of God have come while sitting in math classes (most particularly calculus), or in a science class...I just look at the way it all fits together and I see the intricacy of God's work. It speaks to me every bit as much as a passage of Scripture (and sometimes even more quickly and directly, for me). Of the Psalms, the ones that evoke the wonders of nature tend to have the most impact on me because I go back to those amazing experiences where I sense the common root of physical science and theology.
During the time when I was having my greatest crisis of faith (my later high school years, until my senior year of college) and almost broke with Christianity altogether out of disgust at the behavior of some Christians (I worried that if the people who claimed to represent God acted like that, then perhaps Christianity wasn't the way), this is actually a main reason why my faith in a personal God barely wavered. These experiences in my science classes were among the few things that could still REALLY get through. There was just NO way, no way at all, to look at what was being taught and think it was an accident, happenstance, or that it hadn't been put together with the greatest care. Some people find that the physical sciences weaken their faith. They helped
me to
maintain it when very little else was.
It's the same feeling Johannes Kepler (notice, he's not too far apart in time from Newton!!) described, that compelled him to dress in his finest clothes when he would go up to his observatory to take measurements of the planets, and to pray before he did so. It was his reverence for God as His love and majesty were reflected in nature and in the scientific laws he was discovering that God had ordained.
I'm not sure whether that makes me sound more like a LUNATIC or a NERD, but there you go.
